week 12

Question 1)
What does this mean by the following statements?

Trust is not associative (non-symmetric):
The amount of trust that you have in another person will never be the same as the other person has in you. Each person trusts differently and to different levels. In a business situation buyers and sellers have different levels of trust in each other. In some situations buyers will have more trust in the sellers than the sellers have in the buyers and in other situations the trust relationship is vice versa.

Trust is not transitive:
I think this means that trust can not be transferred to another person or situation. Only you can give away your trust to another person, but you can not make another person trust the other person. They must themselves learn whether to trust that person.

Trust is always between exactly 2 parties:
Trust can only ever be between 2 people. There can not be a four way trust, because you would trust each person individually, hence trust is between 2 people. There could be a situation where you trust another person but that person doesn't trust you. Hence a 1 way trust situation.

Trust will involve either direct trust or recommender trust:
Direct trust is where an individual trusts another due to direct contact and first hand impressions. Recommender trust is where you trust a person due to a recommendation of others experiences and judgements due to their first-hand contact.

Question 2a)
Have a look at the following websites. What are some of the elements that have been incorporated to increase your trust in the sites? If there are also some aspects which decrease you level of trust describe them as well.
http://www.eBay.com.au
eBay has implemented the process of having to create an account to partake in actions. This process means that people have to log in using a password when using the site. However for me, the use of the bright colours actually makes me less trusting in the site. I think that it makes it seem less professional. The large amounts of images on the home page also make the site seem cluttered and makes me feel like it is unprofessional.

http://www.anz.com.au
The ANZ site seems very trust worthy because the site is uncluttered and clearly organised. The use of the 2 colours makes it clear and professional. The site also has numerous security procedures in place to increase security.

http://www.ozrural.com
I don't think this site seems very trustworthy because the site seems a little disorganised. There are to many colours, fonts, shapes and sizes of fonts. There is no common theme or design through the site. It makes the site seems a little like it was made in a backroom of someones house not done by a large professional business.

http://www.paypal.com.au
The PayPal site seems trustworthy because everyone has heard of the name. The site itself is clear, organised and easy to read. The site is easy to negotiate and look around. Having the ability to log in to use the system also helps to increase security and hence trustworthiness. The fact that PayPal is showing that it is aligned with the major banks also helps in increasing its trustworthiness.

Question 2b)
Find a web site yourself that you think looks untrustworthy.
I don't trust any websites that tell me that i have won a million dollars and all I need to do is send $10,000 and a goat to receive my prize. Not sure what it is but something just makes me suspicious...